Word: primed
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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After Japan's momentous election on Aug. 30, when the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) hammered the long-serving Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), both American and Japanese commentators picked up on a remark by Prime Minister - in-waiting Yukio Hatoyama that there needed to be more "balance" in the U.S.-Japan relationship, read an article in which Hatoyama criticized the U.S. and wondered about the solidity of the alliance between Tokyo and Washington. Then Hatoyama called U.S. President Barack Obama and told him that of course - of course! - the alliance was the bedrock of Japanese foreign policy, and everyone relaxed...
...This is a puzzle; after all, we are talking about a left that not so long ago produced Prime Ministers such as Romano Prodi in Italy, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in Britain, Gerhard Schröder in Germany, and Presidents, like François Mitterrand, who ruled France for 14 years. The puzzle is sharpened by the current crop of center-right leaders, who are either not very exciting (Merkel) or much too exciting (Sarkozy and Berlusconi, with their flashy or buffo theatrics...
Mostly we're disappointed because a movie about Facebook is a prime opportunity (one that you, Hollywood, have failed to seize) to comment on the zeitgeist of our times. Yet except for a scene in which a girlfriend demands to know why her boyfriend hasn’t changed his relationship status from “single,” The Social Network doesn’t even begin to capture the quirks and conventions of Facebook-saturated modern life. Perhaps that isn’t the story the script was trying to tell, but honestly, we think it would...
...Lieutenant isn't a film to cherish, but for Cage fans it marks a welcome return to his early days, before he became a conventional leading man in Jerry Bruckheimer films. In his young prime Cage was a weird, tortured actor with highly eccentric impulses; you never knew if he'd punch a wall or eat the flowers. Here he trashes half of lower Louisiana and rips the breathing tube out of an old lady's nose. Both narcotized and energized by his drug regimen, he confronts everybody with the intense stare of a man trying desperately to stay awake...
...Still, columnist Romano believes that Berlusconi's nod to public doubts about Italy's role in Afghanistan is outweighed by the reality that the Prime Minister must ultimately stick with Washington. Other European leaders face the same dilemma, especially now that U.S. President Barack Obama has arrived with a new approach to diplomacy that largely jibes with Europe's. "In the end, all you can really do is keep your soldiers there and accompany them until the day that Obama sees it is O.K. for a pullback," says Romano. "It's a very passive diplomacy, but it's not irrational...